View Full Version : Joseph Richard Marsh
Born 1855 Portsmouth s/o Daniel Marsh & Mary Elizabeth Newman
1871 in school in Greenwich
1881 single in Portsmouth, a schoolteacher.
Dec 1881 marries, probably to Catherine Emily Richards, as she was the girl next door on the 1881 Census.
Joseph Daniel T H Marsh b Dec 1882 is probably his child.
Then. pouf! They disappear.
Joseph had an education. According to the 1881, he had a BA from London University. Wherever he went, I assume it was to a city, rather than the sticks.
Can anyone see any of them, anywhere?
Don't know whether this is them in 1891 in Manitoba, Canada
Source Citation: Year: 1891;Census Place: St Norbert, Provencher, Manitoba, roll T-6294, Family No: 111.
Joseph b1856 England couldn't read profession ?? Institution?
Catherine b1860 England
Joseph b1882 England
Millie b 1889 Manitoba
Ooh, well done, Jbee! It certainly sounds right. Where did you find that, please?
It has to be! I've just found the family in 1901 in Manitoba, after Joseph has died - which explains why he wasn't coming up. And Joseph jnr as JDTH!!!!
Thank you, thank you!!
Oh good - glad it was the right one.
My gosh, it further looks as if Catherine married her lodger, had a baby, died and left the lodger with her motherless daughters. And goodness knows what happened to young Joseph.
soccerbear97
13-02-14, 16:07
Hi, I'm one of Catherine Marsh's great-grandsons, through Milly's son John (yes, I know it was spelled "Millie" in the 1901 census, but most of the documentation I've seen spells it "Milly"). When my dad died in 2010, one of the things he left my mom was a shaving kit that Mom believes used to belong to Joseph Marsh when he was an engineer in the Royal British Navy in the 1870s. She's thinking of donating it to the War Museum here in Ottawa, and while the museum is interested, they want some historical information on Joseph Marsh. As a result, she and I have been digging around looking for information on him and his family to augment what we already have. I stumbled across this site just last week, and between a recording session in the Thunder Bay, Ontario area in 1972, in which my parents interviewed Grandma for information on her family, and what I've found in the last week or so, I'm able to fill in some of the gaps in what has been posted here so far.
First of all, Phoenix, I assume you're referring to the 1901 census (e.g. http://automatedgenealogy.com/census/DisplayHousehold.jsp?sdid=5416&household=88). "J D T H" Marsh, whom we called Uncle Bert, was Joseph Daniel Thomas Herbert Marsh, who Grandma said had been "named for all the relatives". I speculate that "Joseph" was for his father, "Daniel" for his paternal grandfather, and "Thomas" for his maternal grandfather, Thomas James Frost Richards. I don't know at this point where "Herbert" comes from. As for what happened to Uncle Bert, I don't know much about him. He was still around in 1972, by which point most of my dad's family was scattered across Canada. Consequently, I don't think I ever met him--I was only six years old when Grandma did that interview.
On top of that, I believe the boarder's name was misspelled, or at least arbitrarily miscorrected, on the 1901 census form. "William Simons" is actually the future Manitoba MLA William Henry Sims (1872-1955).
Between what Grandma said and what I've subsequently found, here's the story as I know it so far. Some of the dates are sketchy, but here goes. Joseph Marsh was born on November 10, 1855 to Daniel Marsh and Mary Elizabeth Marsh (nee Newman). Catherine Emily Richards was born on September 14, 1860 to Thomas Richards; I don't know her mother's name. Joseph and his younger brother Robert George Marsh were baptized at All Saints, Portsea on January 6, 1861.
Mary Marsh died in 1864 in Bishop's Lane, Portsea. Daniel Marsh remarried the following year, possibly to Rebecca Rumble. In 1871 Robert was reported to be living at 11 Waltham Street with his father Daniel, his stepmother, a sister, Polly, and two stepbrothers, the latter of whom were wrongly given the surname Marsh.
That same year, Joseph Marsh attended school in Greenwich. I speculate he was gearing up to join the Royal British Navy; we have Xerox copies of an RBN document dated July 1877 certifying that he had passed the requirements for engineer--second class, IIRC (I don't have it in front of me; I'll have to double-check).
William Henry Sims was born on January 6, 1872, the son of William A. Sims and Clara Last.
By 1881 Joseph, now apparently discharged from the navy and having a BA from London University, was living in Portsmouth, working as a schoolteacher at a boys' school. According to Grandma, Catherine, also working as a teacher, had been living in Devonshire, but the 1881 census reported her to be the girl next door, so she must have moved to Portsmouth fairly recently. Joseph and Catherine were married on December 20, 1881 in the cathedral at Portsmouth. Their son, Uncle Bert, was born on October 28, 1882.
Here's where the dating gets a little muddy. Grandma said Uncle Bert was "nine years old" before the family moved to Canada. However, this is contradicted by her having been born in Canada in 1889 (Bert would have been nine years old in 1891). So I speculate she meant nine MONTHS instead. With that in mind, it's around July 1883 that I'm arbitrarily placing an event she talked about: "My father used to play football [likely soccer], and he got injured playing football. And so the doctor advised that he come out to this country [Canada], because there were lots of land, parcels of land being sold there. So he landed around the Red River [area of Manitoba]." My dad asked her if Joseph was a Selkirk settler, but she said he wasn't. "He had to go to Emerson to get his--what you'd call normal, I suppose, or something." I think she was referring to a teaching certificate of some sort. "And Mother stayed on the farm--no, it wasn't a farm, it was just a piece of property."
Since Grandma said her father "was away a long time," I'm arbitrarily placing 1887 as the year he completed his training at Emerson, assuming a three-year program. (It's also possible he only needed to get enough training to "adjust" what he already had to the education standards Manitoba had at the time, so he could have completed his training a year or two earlier, but I'll assume 1887 for now.) After his training he took a teaching job at a school in northern Manitoba. Around 1888 (based on the 1887 assumption) he wasn't feeling well, and he was forced to leave his teaching job.
Around early 1889, Joseph and Catherine, now pregnant with Grandma, moved to Niverville, which is about 12 km southeast of Red River--Grandma said it's "about 25 miles from Winnipeg." She was born on April 11, 1889, "along the Red River...down from the Red River from Niverville. We moved up there and then...[my parents] bought a store."
Grandma's sister Dora was born on October 12, 1893. Grandma said Dora attended school in Winnipeg. Although she didn't say when, she did mention that Dora was "with the McIntyres, you know, Dr. McIntyre. That school is named after him." Grandma was likely referring to Daniel McIntyre (1852-1946), a public official and educator in Winnipeg who was credited with developing the city's school system; the Daniel McIntyre Collegiate Institute is named after him. In 1885, after his teaching career ended, he became superintendent of schools, a position he held for 43 years. He was also the first president of the Children's Aid Society in Winnipeg, which was founded in 1898. Based on that, I speculate that it was during McIntyre's tenure as CAS president that Dora was attending school, probably around 1899; if this is true, she would have been staying at the CAS.
We don't know at this point what year Joseph died; certainly it would have been some time between 1893 and 1901. According to Grandma: "[T]here was a teacher [William Sims] that came after my father died--within the store--he boarded with us, and he used to take photographs...of a lot of the Mennonite people who came from...Steinbach to have their pictures taken...And then they used to haul our grain into Niverville. Mother cashed the cheques for Ogilvie's." Grandma was likely referring to the Ogilvie Flour Mill in Winnipeg.
Around 1901, probably after the census, Uncle Bert was attending Manitoba College in Winnipeg. Grandma was running, or at least helping to run, the store, and she was going to school at about the same time. By this time Catherine was also running the post office "on the corner...[T]he store was right against the house...and there was a door there with a glass window in it. She had a curtain over it. But we were always peeking into the store to see what was going on."
Catherine married William Sims around 1902, and in 1903 their son Elmir Cecil Sims was born. Mom speculates Catherine might have died giving birth to Elmir, as we have a photo of Grandma and Elmir when he was just a baby, and Grandma had to help raise him. (Mom tried to get in touch with one of Dad's sisters the other day to talk about these and other aspects of the family history, but the sister, turning 91 later this month, has vertigo and was in the hospital recovering from a fall, so Mom will get in touch with her again in the next week or two.) In 1907 Sims began his term as a councillor in the Rural Municipality of Swan River (which would last till 1913), and married his second wife, Christina Mounsey, in 1909. The rest of his biography is available on Wikipedia, but Grandma and her siblings clearly kept in touch with the Sims family, as Elmir would later be listed on Grandma's obituary, and William and Christina attended Grandma's wedding to Murdoch Fraser on November 26, 1913. A full account of the wedding can be found in the November 27, 1913 edition of the Swan River Star.
Dad, the baby in the family IIRC, was born in Swan River in October 1929, married my mom in October 1955 (she's a descendant of 17th-century Quebec pioneer Jacques Bernier, aka Jean de Paris), and my siblings and I were born in 1958, 1960 and 1966. Grandma died on January 13, 1979.
tenterfieldjulie
20-02-14, 10:05
Soccerbear, Phoenix will be delighted to make contact with you. She is preparing for WDYTYA at Olympia for a FHG, so she might not check in here for a couple of days. She will be back however and will be delighted to hear from you. Welcome to GF. Julie from Aus
How wonderful it will be for Phoenix to see this! :)
Thank you, Julie and Joy! Yes, my mind has been rather on other people's family histories at the moment, rather than my own!
Soccerbear, that is amazing. Dad was always very vague about his Marsh relations, but Joseph died a good twenty years before Dad was born, it's not surprising.
If you look online, you can find reports of the death of Daniel Marsh's death (Joseph's father). Robert George Marsh had been quarrelling with a neighbour over a cat. The neighbours got so irate they scaled the party wall and attacked Robert. There was a case in the local police court and right in the middle of it, Daniel collapsed and died.
Daniel had been a sailor in earlier years (the reason Joseph obtained a place in the school in Greenwich) One of his posting was on board a ship that ran aground just after midnight one New Year's Day. They had to jettison all the heavy equipment: guns etc and then the crew all ran from one end of the ship to the other to create a see-saw movement which did finally succeed in freeing the ship. There are two accounts of the event: the captain's log and the master's log. Curiously, the descriptions tally word for word... which makes me wonder just how accurate those accounts are!
Daniel Marsh and Mary Elizabeth Newman married in 1840 and had several children (shore leave allowing!) but most died young. Dad always referred to their daughter Mary as "little aunt Polly". She was in service all her working life and had a mysterious locked box which she would occasionally leave with my grandparents.
Daniel's father was another Daniel, who married no fewer than three times
She would annoy my grandmother intensely by saying, after particular effort had been expended in feeding her "That was as good as a meal"
Lots more to say - will add as I can. Thank you so much for posting!
soccerbear97
27-02-14, 19:55
I was taking some photos of the shaving kit yesterday to send to the museum with the donation forms, and Mom and I found a photo in it, which is about the size of a postage stamp. I scanned it at 600 dpi resolution and digitally "airbrushed" it a bit to eliminate scratches.
https://scontent-b-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/t1/1911926_10151935286911625_1987893740_n.jpg
Mom thinks this may be great-grandpa Joseph, but I wonder if it might be Robert instead.
Mom and I will soon be preparing for the museum a concise history of Joseph Marsh and his family, and she will be incorporating details that she has told me about, but are collectively a lot to absorb when just being told them verbally. This will also clear up some of the speculation I've included in my post above. When we have that ready, I'll post a summary here.
BTW, Phoenix, I was digging around the net looking for the Portsmouth Evening News articles of June 7 and 8, 1887 re Daniel Marsh's death, and those issues appear either not to have been digitized yet or not to have been available for digitization (I was searching primarily at britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk). Do you know of any other sources I might be able to find on this side of the Atlantic?
I've also been looking at the Canadian censuses of 1906 and 1911 and the Alberta-Saskatchewan-Manitoba census of 1916 to track Joseph's family after William Sims entered the picture. Wikipedia and the Manitoba Historical Society both state that Sims married twice, but the 1916 census indicates a third marriage, this time to a second Catherine who would have been born around 1868. I can't imagine how the MHS would have missed this, as Sims had been in public life continuously since before he'd married Christina Mounsey in 1909 (councillor for Swan River 1907-1913, reeve of the town in 1914, and then member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba 1914-1920). Maybe Catherine simply didn't want to share the public spotlight. At any rate, the later censuses indicate he adopted Bert, Milly and Dora, although their surname remained Marsh.
The only photograph I have of Robert is as an old man, but the moustache is spot on.
I read the newspaper article at Colindale before it closed. It was fairly brief, so I think I just copied it long hand. I realise it's not the same as the actual newspaper, but I'll look it out for you.
I do have photographs taken at the National ARchives of various records in which Daniel Marsh appears. I can't post them online: copyright restrictions but can email them to you.
Just realised the time - 90 minutes past midnight. I have work tomorrow, so will have to sign out, but I'll look out what I can tomorrow.
I had a look at Gale and fmp for the newspaper entry. Neither site had the Portsmouth Evening News, but I found well over a dozen versions of the demise of Daniel Marsh in other papers around the UK (presumably mostly copied from the Hampshire press). I didn't look at all of them, but I think this is one of the longer versions, from the Hampshire Telegraph published 11th June 1887:
http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m13/merry_monty_montgomery/Other%20Research/HampshireTelegraphSat11thJune1887_zpsf52756ee.jpg (http://s100.photobucket.com/user/merry_monty_montgomery/media/Other%20Research/HampshireTelegraphSat11thJune1887_zpsf52756ee.jpg. html)
That is the conclusion - the bit that made it syndicated and the bit that involves Soccerbear's ancestor. There is also the report of the case itself, where Robert is given a black eye by his neighbour.
Do you need that piece too then?
BTW, Phoenix, I was digging around the net looking for the Portsmouth Evening News articles of June 7 and 8, 1887 re Daniel Marsh's death
I thought it was just the death of Daniel that soccerbear needed? No doubt the other article will also be in the Hampshire Telegraph.
Do you need that piece too then?
I thought it was just the death of Daniel that soccerbear needed? No doubt the other article will also be in the Hampshire Telegraph.
Having said that, I can't see it. I guess the original case wasn't exciting enough to be in anything other than the local paper, but what happened to Daniel was more newsworthy.
soccerbear97
28-02-14, 09:01
Well, Mom doesn't absolutely need it for the War Museum, since she's understandably focusing primarily on Joseph. But I was thinking that as long as we're doing this genealogical research anyway, I might as well try to be thorough, more for the family's sake than anything else. Last week I started plunking into an old genealogical software package called Family Trees Quick and Easy all the data I have on hand, but the family tree as I've constructed it so far is kinda lopsided in favor of Mom's family because the data we have on that is much more detailed to about three or four generations back, and I'd like to try to even things out a bit.
To my surprise, I have located a memory stick with images of Daniel's naval career.
Have pm'd my email address if you'd like copies.
On the 29th ult at Manitoba Joseph the beloved husband of Emily Marsh late of St George's Square Portsea. - 28 Nov 1895.
soccerbear97
01-03-14, 20:24
I just found a series of dates on the Manitoba vital statistics website (http://vitalstats.gov.mb.ca/Genealogy.html):
Joseph Marsh's date of death--October 29, 1895 in "RM Hanover"--see https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Hanover,+MB/@49.443478,-96.845129,10z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x52c1b5a9142e9853:0x6afb9 4514972cb83 . (In light of what you just posted, Phoenix, I wonder if perhaps what vitalstats.gov.mb.ca has might be a typo beyond the fact that they listed his age as 49. What they have is the only Joseph Marsh, Joseph Richard or otherwise, or at least the only one in their database, to have died in Manitoba any time prior to 1903.)
Catherine's marriage to William Sims--August 19, 1902 in Winnipeg. (Sims was listed as "Simms" in the database here.)
Catherine's date of death, and Elmir's date of birth--both August 25, 1903, in Swan River. So Mom's speculation was correct. If Catherine didn't die during childbirth, then it would have been shortly afterward as a result of a hemorrhage or something. (Elmir's record was a little tricky to find--his name was spelled "Elmier Simms" in the database.)
William Sims' marriage to Christina Sophia Mounsey--June 30, 1909 in Rockwood.
Christina's date of death--May 24, 1938 in Swan River. So I'll have to take another look at the 1916 census--the Manitoba Historical Society might have been correct after all.
The date of death tallies: it must have taken a month for it to get back to the UK. I too wondered whether I had the right person, but he was at St George's Square in 1881, so that fits.
soccerbear97
02-03-14, 17:10
Did you get the St. George's Square reference from the marriage registry? We have a Xerox copy of a typewritten extract of the registry (page 168) relating to Joseph's wedding. I could e-mail it to you, if you like.
soccerbear97
04-03-14, 00:48
I just showed Mom the 1891 census page showing Joseph Marsh's profession (since she comes from Quebec, her French is far more fluent than mine). It reads "école primaire instituteur", or primary school teacher.
Falling behind here. The St George's Square address is from the 1881 census. I would love a copy of his marriage.
I have several certificates myself which I will dig out. They are, however, rather dubious copies. One of Daniel Marsh's brides is shown as the daughter of a gasman. The original regsiter shows her father's occupation as yeoman!
soccerbear97
04-03-14, 13:58
Okay, I'll get that to you tomorrow. I have some audio production to take care of today.
In the meantime, I've been trying to solve the "third marriage" mystery surrounding William Sims. As I mentioned, in the 1916 census he is listed with a second Catherine as his wife, along with Elmir. This new Catherine is listed as being 48 years old, implying a birth year of about 1868. The thing is, Sims' second wife, Christina Sophia Mounsey, whom he married in 1909, is listed in the 1911 census as having been born in May 1866 (making her about 50 years old at the time of the 1916 census), and in the Manitoba vital statistics records as having died at age 77 in 1938. According to the Manitoba vital statistics website, there is a Mary Catherine Simms who died in 1935 at the age of 68, implying a birth year of about 1869. So allowing for a couple of possible typos, this Mary Catherine Simms might well be the Catherine Sims listed in the 1916 census.
But I've been having a hard time trying to find anything that might shed some light on the circumstances surrounding this. I'm thinking perhaps William and Christina divorced some time during his career as a member of the Legislative Assembly (1914-1920), and he later married the second Catherine, but my mom says that divorce would have been unusual in those days. However, the 1914 provincial election, which saw Sims elected into his first term as MLA, was held at a time when the government was in the aftermath of a scandal involving the construction of new legislative buildings. If Sims did divorce Christina, then he might have been concerned that going public about it, let alone about his marriage to the second Catherine, might prove to be too much of a distraction, both for himself and for the government, in the wake of that scandal. This is what I'm looking to confirm, but information in this regard isn't easy to find. Moreover, I can't find any record that his marriage to the second Catherine took place in Manitoba--I thought perhaps he and the second Catherine might have gotten married out-of-province, but Mom says even that would have been unusual.
soccerbear97
20-07-14, 04:40
I've been digging around my old diary entries looking for data on past shows that I've done, and in one entry for 1999 I stumbled across an account of a visit we had from my uncle Doug and aunt Verna on July 30, 1999 (Doug was my dad's brother): "Much of the conversation that evening revolved around Dad's family, and at one point Dad had me bring out an old shaving kit that used to belong to Great-Grandpa [Joseph] Marsh. In addition to shaving equipment typical of the late nineteenth century, there was an unused bar of soap that still retained its fragrance after over a hundred years, a few newspaper clippings from the 1870s, and even a tintype photo of him." This is the photo that I posted here earlier this year. So it would appear Mom was right--it is of Joseph. If it were of Robert I have a feeling Dad or Doug would have said something.
Hi Soccerbear
That's great: it means it's your ancestor AND he looked like mine.
I have just taken out a sub to British Newspapers Archive and can see that they don't have the Portsmouth Evening News for all years yet - hence some articles not there.
Also realise that I have promised things which I haven't sent yet. I'm not in a position to do so at the moment, but do chase me. they are at home somewhere!
soccerbear97
20-07-14, 17:02
Hi Phoenix!
I've been meaning to get in touch with you regarding the material you sent me earlier this year. I've been tied up mainly on a huge project involving our church choir.
I looked up on Wikipedia all the ships that were on the list you sent me, the ones Daniel Marsh had served on, and that was amazing. Even for him to have served on the HMS Victory, even though he was born too late for the Battle of Trafalgar, is impressive. I've been studying the website of that ship to get an insight of day-to-day life aboard her, and when I rehearse with my vocal trio I can't help but think about him and his naval career when we do songs like "Carrickfergus".
There was one ship whose name I couldn't make out, on which he had served from December 3, 1850 to February 13, 1854. The name looks like Portsmouth, but the writing isn't clear. I thought the name might be Prestwick, but according to Wikipedia there has never been a Royal Navy ship by that name.
BTW, we still have the shaving kit and haven't heard from the War Museum yet. Mom has a feeling they're not interested.
I'm amazed at all the different places Daniel got to.
His record says Portsmouth Dyd - Dockyard. But there's a bit above which says for... and I can't read that.
soccerbear97
21-07-14, 02:18
I'm going to look into that in the next week or two. My guess at this point is that Daniel might have been filling in for either a crew member on the Victory or a dock worker at Portsmouth Yard, and the notation might refer to that other person. Alternately, since Daniel was a Coxswain of Pinnace by the time of his posting to the HMS Edinburgh, it's possible he might have undergone training for that while at Portsmouth Yard, and the notation might refer to that.
soccerbear97
29-07-14, 17:06
I started putting together yesterday a database of the sailors listed on the muster lists, thinking that by comparing the list of names to that "mystery notation" on Daniel's naval record I might be able to figure out what it reads, but then I just realized that the muster lists have to do with primarily the Pembroke and the Edinburgh. So I'm not going to get any clues that way. As far as I can tell the notation seems to read "For Farry br.", but I haven't been able to find any clues online as to what that might mean.
I can see I need to go back to TNA, but my free days are taken up for the next few months. The ship's log will show what was happening. It looks as if the Edinburgh was undergoing a thorough over-haul in the period.
soccerbear97
01-08-14, 05:02
According to Wikipedia, the Edinburgh was taken in hand at Portsmouth Dockyard in 1846 and converted to steam-powered screw propulsion as a "blockship". The conversion was completed on August 29, 1852. Since Daniel was at Portsmouth Yard for part of this time, it's possible he might have been involved in the refit operation. She acted as guard ship for Devonport till February 1854, when she was assigned to the fleet sent to the Baltic under Sir Charles Napier. Daniel began his tour of duty aboard her on February 14 of that year.
soccerbear97
01-08-14, 14:23
Just discovered something interesting. The Wikipedia entry for "blockship" indicates that the term was "applied to two groups of mobile sea batteries developed by the Royal Commission on Coast Defence. The first batch of four were obtained from around 1845 by converting old sailing 74-gun two-deckers, all of them Vengeur class ships of the line, into floating batteries, equipped with a steam/screw propulsion system. Also called 'steam guardships', these conversions involved cutting down to a single deck, with ballast removed, and a jury rig installed with a medium 450 hp (340 kW) engine for speeds of 5.8—8.9 knots (11–16 km/h)." Among these four ships was, of course, the Edinburgh. What's interesting is that "a second batch of ships were similarly obtained from around 1855 by converting other elderly 74-gun ships," among them the Pembroke.
soccerbear97
19-11-14, 18:07
Just got a call a couple of days ago from a relative in Winnipeg who e-mailed us yesterday, providing us with some more background on Grandma's family, and a few corrections to the dating on certain points.
Joseph and Catherine both ran a private school in England before they came to Canada in 1888. They settled in St. Agathe, Manitoba when Bert was five or six years old. Based on this, I've adjusted the conjectured dates of:
* Joseph completing his training at Emerson and taking the teaching job in northern Manitoba to 1891, which I feel is a better estimate considering his illness (I'm still assuming a three-year teaching training program for the time being; the 1891 census indicates he was living in St. Norbert, just south of Winnipeg, at the time);
* Joseph having to leave his teaching job to 1892; and
* their move to Niverville to 1892 (Niverville is not very far from St. Agathe, and I've just revisited the transcript of the interview with Grandma--she indicated they moved to Niverville after he had that teaching job).
It's possible these latter two dates might be even later than that, closer to 1895.
In 1903 Catherine Marsh, in giving birth to Elmir, died in childbirth from a placenta previa. Milly was then relegated to caring for Elmir; according to stories, she had quite a hard life and was not very happy with her stepfather's choice of Christina Mounsey, who reportedly had a reputation for being mean.
In a letter to Elmir, Bert talks about Catherine's father, Thomas James Frost Richards, as being a "naval man", and says he "may have been in the Battle of the Baltic in 1854, as a medal...will testify." (I thought at first Bert might have made a mistake and had been referring to Daniel Marsh instead, but Thomas was a Warrant Officer.) Our relative in Winnipeg also has access to many letters written back and forth between Catherine and "Richard"--i.e. Joseph--and a meticulously written teacher's notebook.
She also sent us a photo which she thinks may be of Daniel Marsh:
761
Mom and I will be working on a document summarizing the family history, but concentrating more on the Marsh side of the family.
In the meantime, I've dug up a bit of information on the historical background behind Daniel's sea voyages:
* His tour of duty aboard the St. Vincent began while the ship was in the middle of participating in the latter of the three Experimental Squadrons sent out in 1831, 1844 and 1845 to test new techniques of ship design, armament, building and propulsion against old ones. The St. Vincent was subsequently assigned to the Channel Fleet, with newly-appointed Sir Charles Napier as the fleet's commander. Napier hoisted his flag aboard the St. Vincent, making her his flagship. I get the impression there was something about Napier that Daniel didn't like--Napier, though courageous and full of energy, had a reputation for being eccentric and gung-ho. Indeed, he expanded the fleet's area of operations to extend more or less throughout what we refer to today as the Western Approaches. First, Portugal was in the tail end of a small-scale civil war, and there were British interests there to protect. Second, with Ireland in the aftermath of the Potato Famine, there were fears that insurrection might develop there. And third, there were considerations of experimentation and training with new ships, made necessary by rapid technological advances such as screw propulsion. That Daniel's tour of duty aboard the St. Vincent ended on December 1, 1847 suggests to me he wanted to get off that ship before Napier could get very far with dealing with these problems. (In 1848, for example, the fleet got sent to Gibraltar and then onto the Moroccan coast with the purpose of curbing the activities of Riff pirates--maybe Daniel didn't like the direction that all this was going.)
* By the time Daniel began his tour of duty aboard the HMS Victory in December 1847, the ship's active career had come to an end. In 1812 she had been moored in Portsmouth Harbor off Gosport and begun service as a depot ship. In 1824 she had begun service as a harbor ship. By the 1830s she had become largely forgotten, aside from a brief period when she had been visited by the queen-in-waiting, Princess Victoria, in 1833. In 1842 she and the St. Vincent had been lit up in blue lights and port fires in a display for Queen Victoria, who had arrived to visit the latter ship. I have the impression that during Daniel's tour of duty aboard the Victory, the ship never really sailed per se, making his transition to his stint at Portsmouth Dockyard a really easy one.
* Daniel's tour of duty at Portsmouth Dockyard began while the Edinburgh was in the middle of being refitted with screw propulsion, a process that had begun around 1846. Since he got transferred to the Edinburgh afterward, I speculate that he somehow assisted in the refit, which was completed in August 1852. The Edinburgh subsequently acted as a guard ship for Devonport until she joined the English fleet for the Baltic campaigns in the Crimean War.
* Daniel's tour of duty as a Coxswain of Pinnace aboard the Edinburgh began just a few weeks before France and Britain entered the Crimean conflict. Napier was assigned command of the fleet, but Daniel did not have to deal with him directly this time--Rear-Admiral Henry Ducie Chads, one of Napier's subordinate commanders, had hoisted his own flag aboard the Edinburgh. The fleet returned to home port in December 1854 at the conclusion of the first campaign, leaving Daniel enough time to take a long enough shore leave to allow Joseph to be conceived. The website http://geraldellott.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/crimean-war-exhibit.pdf suggests Daniel returned to the Edinburgh around April 1855 for the second Baltic campaign.
BTW, I found a Thomas James Frost Richards mentioned at http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/DEVON/2012-06/1338623293. I wonder if this might be Joseph's father-in-law.
Wow!
That looks a slightly fancy uniform, though.
I have found this: http://www.bosleys.net/b58/uniforms.html
which looks similar, if you strip off the braid. Trying to find anything closer.
Can you see the bottom of this image?
http://www.godfreydykes.info/OLD%20NAVY%20ALBUM%20ONE.html
It's the 4th image, though I can't see if the coat is cut away.
My best stab at this is that the photo is that of a warrant officer, while Daniel appears to be a Coxswain of the Pinnace - a second class petty officer.
Is there anything at all on the back of the photograph?
soccerbear97
20-11-14, 13:07
If you're right about the uniform, the photo could then be of Joseph's father-in-law Thomas Richards instead, as he was a warrant officer at the time Joseph and Catherine were married. I've just e-mailed our relative in Winnipeg to see if there's anything on the back of the photo, as she only sent me a JPEG. (I think she's one of Dad's nieces, but I'm not sure--his side of the family is scattered across Canada, mainly between Vancouver and northwestern Ontario, and I don't get to see them all that often, as I'm in the Ottawa area.)
soccerbear97
20-11-14, 14:23
Just heard back. There's nothing on the back of the photo.
I also found this:
On all occasions of mourning, Officers are to wear a piece of black crape round the left arm above left elbow, and no other mark of mourning is ever to be worn unless specially ordered.
from CIRCULAR No. 47-N.
Admiralty, 10th October 1875.
prairiegirl
10-09-15, 16:30
...I've been trying to solve the "third marriage" mystery surrounding William Sims.
Late last night I was Googling some information about my grandfather, the late Elmir C. Sims, and came across this thread. I forwarded the link to my father, Elmir's son, in Manitoba and talked to him this morning.
William H. Sims was married four times. I always thought his first wife Catherine died in childbirth, but my dad told me that she died a month later. My dad said she died due to hemorrhaging a month after Elmir was born.
"WH," as he was called by my grandmother, then married Christina. After she passed away, he married a third time. My dad remembers her but didn't give me a name. She passed away too. However, his fourth wife outlived him.
My dad says that Elmir often spoke of an Uncle Bert.
Hope this helps. If you want to know anything else about the Sims side of the family, let me know. I'd be happy to help.
Hi Prairiegirl!
Thanks for posting, and welcome to GF!
Soccerbear doesn't come on the forum very often, but will be very interested in this.
soccerbear97
10-09-15, 21:50
Hi Prairiegirl!
I've been working sporadically on a family tree database for about a year and a half now. I got as far as I could with it about a year ago and have been adding to it in bits and pieces ever since. For example, the aunt I talked about in post #7 of this thread (the one with vertigo), my dad's last surviving sibling, died this past May, and I was able to find her obituary online the other day, as well as that of her late husband. Most of my database is kinda lopsided in favor of Mom's side of the family--she has a detailed genealogy book going all the way back on her father's side to a French-born Quebec pioneer who came to Canada some time in the 1650s--but I'm trying to balance it out with whatever I can find regarding Dad's side of the family. And that information is slow to come in because Dad's family has been scattered across Canada for so long and spread so far apart that it's only once in a blue moon that I've ever gotten to see any of them.
As I mentioned on this thread back in November (see post #36), I have a relative in Winnipeg who also stated Catherine died in childbirth, from a placenta previa (and my mom, a retired RN, had even speculated as much). If you take a look at the Manitoba Vital Statistics website (vitalstats.gov.mb.ca), you'll find the date of her death and the date of Elmir's birth do in fact match (August 25, 1903). Catherine is listed there as Catherine Emily Sims and Elmir as a misspelled Elmier Cecil Simms. You'll also find Catherine's maiden name in the details of Elmir's entry.
Interestingly enough, I took a look at William Sims' Wikipedia entry just a few days ago and had to make a series of corrections both there and to a number of pages that were linked to it at the time. Apparently there was another William Henry Sims who was the Lieutenant-Governor of Mississippi from 1878, and someone had linked the relevant pages there to the entry on our William Sims not even noticing that he had been born in 1872!
From what I understand, some time after William Sims married Catherine, he adopted the existing Marsh children, but I don't have a date for this.
Last week I was going through a recording that one of our relatives, Mildred Clark-Nelson--I think it might be Dora Marsh's daughter, but I'm not sure--made a number of years ago in which she was reminiscing about early life in Swan River. She said Christina had some keyboard ability; they had an organ of some sort in the house and she would play Christmas carols. I found that interesting because I play keyboards professionally.
Dad once wrote that he never knew his official street address in Swan River because back then the houses weren't numbered and the streets were not named, but he did say he lived about "a block and a half" north of Main Street. I went onto Google Street View earlier this week trying to find the house, but most of the houses in that neighborhood are partially obscured by trees--and of course it's possible that in the last eighty years or so the house might have been torn down and another one built in its place.
Thanks for posting, and welcome to the forum!
I was lying in bed last night, idly staring at the picture above the bookcase, when I realised it was painted by Uncle Bert - "my" great uncle Bertie Marsh, Joseph Marsh's nephew. It hadn't occurred to me that both men had sons called Bert.
soccerbear97
11-09-15, 14:25
My dad got into art, working mainly in oils in the early 1970s and then moving on to watercolors later in life, though he never became a professional artist. I'll have to ask Mom if any of his interest in art was partially influenced by his family--she's coming home today from a cruise in the Mediterranean.
Below is a photo of the only work in oils I can remember him having done. It's of a cottage in Quebec that one of my aunts on my mom's side used to own.
https://scontent-lga1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/1209321_10151585263506625_749762441_n.jpg?oh=d2b49 3fa2371e82799017a851552cf6b&oe=56A997F0
That's lovely, Soccerbear! Much better than my picture, which is watercolour, with the paper sadly yellowed.
soccerbear97
15-11-15, 23:53
Just found links to summaries of the operational histories of the ships Daniel Marsh served on:
HMS Pembroke: http://www.pbenyon.plus.com/18-1900/P/03437.html
HMS Magicienne: http://www.pbenyon.plus.com/18-1900/M/02824.html
HMS St. Vincent: http://www.pbenyon.plus.com/18-1900/S/04400.html
HMS Victory: http://www.pbenyon.plus.com/18-1900/U/05042.html
HMS Edinburgh: http://www.pbenyon.plus.com/18-1900/E/01550.html
I stumbled upon the pbenyon.plus.com site as a result of Googling the Magicienne and finding a forum about it: http://www.worldnavalships.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15239
Ooh, thank you, Soccerbear!
I have used that site lots for the Napoleonic War, but hadn't thought to explore its possibilities for a later date.
soccerbear97
25-05-16, 23:31
I've been doing a bit of cleanup beneath my bedroom window, and the next thing I'm to process is the printout of the activity of the Magicienne from the website I mentioned here in November--what I want to do here is add it to the family chronology. I then decided to do the same for all of Daniel Marsh's ships, and so I added the Pembroke data today.
As it turns out, we have an indirect connection to British screenwriter Julian Fellowes, best known for the screenplay for Gosford Park and as the creator, writer and producer of the series Downton Abbey. One of his ancestors is Captain Sir Thomas Fellowes (1778-1853), an officer of the Royal British Navy and a veteran of the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars. Around October-November 1836 he was given the command of the HMS Pembroke on the Lisbon station. As you know, Daniel had been serving aboard that ship since March 28 of that year.
Fellowes was only the captain of that ship for a handful of months. On February 27, 1837, the Pembroke left Lisbon for Gibraltar and Malta. At Gibraltar, she was driven from her anchorage, and touched the ground during a series of gales. By March 11 she was refloated without serious injury. Fellowes was subsequently reassigned to command the HMS Vanguard, then was ordered home in April to face a June 1-2 court martial on charges relating to the Pembroke going ashore. He was admonished and ordered to be more cautious in the future. News of the court martial was published in The Times on July 5, though the date reference indicated that the court martial had taken place "last week".
This was, however, a minor blight on his career. After his command of the Vanguard ended in 1840, he returned to the United Kingdom to superintend Plymouth's victualling yard and hospital (1843-1846). He was promoted to rear admiral on July 26, 1847.
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